


Jumpers

by mydogwatson



Series: Postcard Tales: Interlude [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Sherlock is smitten, different first meeting, discussion of past drug use, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 03:05:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11888616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: Sherlock takes a road less travelled and meets a man on a bridge.





	Jumpers

**Author's Note:**

> So here is the second of my new series. I never seem to weary of having the boys meet in some different way, so here is another one. Hope you like. It is definitely less grim than Fallen Star...
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Oh, the next one might take a day or two longer, as the 'polish' is turning into something of an expansion. Damn.

Why did people have to talk?

Or, at the very least, why did they have to talk to _him_? By this time, Lestrade should certainly know that he hated to be nattered at. But, no, here they were, three hours into a painfully boring stake-out, and the inspector clearly felt compelled to _talk_.

“…and I sat out there for two bloody hours before the bastard let me pull him off that ledge and back into the flat.”

Sherlock decided that he would have taken the leap twenty minutes in, just to stop Lestrade from blathering at him.

The inspector shook his head in apparent despair at the human condition, as if Sherlock cared about that. “Jumpers are the worst,” he [hopefully] finished.

It was probably a good thing that the suspect finally came through the warehouse door just at that moment, because Sherlock was about to say something exceedingly rude to Lestrade. But then there was a short chase through a dark alleyway, a collision with a rubbish bin [the suspect, luckily], and finally, of course, the monotony of explaining everything to the idiots from the Yard.

When it was finally over, Sherlock, as always, refused the usual offer of a ride home and walked away. It did not take long for him to realise that both the lateness of the hour and the location deep in a neighbourhood known for a high crime rate, worked against his chances of being able to find a cab. Not that he minded all that much. He actually liked walking the streets of London alone at night. It gave him the sense of being a king surveying his realm. The sense that London was his. Not in the sense of ownership, [he was not his brother] but more that the city was part of his blood. His bone. A part of his essence.

Other than a couple of anonymous lumps huddled under filthy blankets in the doorway of a darkened Oxfam shop, Sherlock was crossing Southwark Bridge before he saw another human being. The man was leaning against the stone parapet, staring down into the black water below. An ugly government-issued cane was propped next to him.

Sherlock almost just continued on his way, passing the stranger and never giving him another thought, because why would he? Why should he? Even years later, Sherlock could never really explain why he stopped on the bridge that night. Why this stranger had mattered.

As Sherlock leant against the stone wall as well, the man glanced at him, but said nothing.

It took only a quick look, up and down, for Sherlock to know a great deal about the man. He was short, with a fading tan, a just slightly grown-out military haircut, and the camouflage of loose-fitting, boring clothing. His attempts at hiding his true nature did not fool Sherlock, of course. “Afghanistan or Iraq?” he asked.

“Excuse me?” the man responded, looking at him, clearly puzzled.

“Don’t be tedious.”

The man scowled at that, but then said, grudgingly, “Afghanistan.”

Sherlock twitched a brief almost-smile. “So a military doctor recently invalided home.”

At that, the man straightened his shoulders and fell into a deceptively casual posture. Sherlock was delighted that he had been correct in his first appraisal.

“Who the fuck are you?” the soldier demanded.

Because sometimes Mummy’s lectures on good manners were useful, Sherlock held out a hand. “Sherlock Holmes,” he said crisply.

After a pause, the man also reached out and they shook hands. “John Watson.”

They both turned to look down at the water again.

“This bridge has the lowest traffic utilisation of any bridge in Central London,” Sherlock mentioned casually.

“Does it?” John seemed to think about that fact for a moment. “I didn’t know that,” was what he finally said.

“Oh? I thought maybe you had selected it specifically for that reason.”

John shot him a glance. “Selected it? I was just walking and arrived here. Like you.”

Sherlock only hummed a reply.

John sighed.

For just a moment, Sherlock wished that he had paid more attention to all of Lestrade’s earlier blather about jumpers. He leaned over just a bit to look at the water. “You do know, don’t you, that falling 7.4 meters and smashing into the cold Thames is not an especially pleasant way to die?”

John inhaled sharply, but didn’t say anything.

“Not to mention that as a doctor you must know what something like that would do to your body.” His gaze shifted slightly as he looked down at the other man’s forearm, at the scattering of blond hairs he could see there. Bizarrely, he wondered if they were as soft as they looked “But you thought jumping would be less trouble, didn’t you? No one would have to go into your horrid little bedsit and find your brain matter splattering the walls.”

“How do you know all of this?” John said in a harsh whisper.

Sherlock shrugged. “I merely observe,” he said simply. “Unlike the vast majority of idiots.”

“Must make you a lot of friends,” John muttered.

“You think so?” Sherlock arched a brow at him.

John’s smile was unexpected. And, frankly, rather lovely. “Well, probably not,” he admitted. “But I think it is brilliant.”

The compliment was as unexpected as the smile had been.

The two men just looked at one another for a moment; then, with a shared and sudden shyness, they both watched the water again.

“Were you really going to jump?” Sherlock asked softly.

“I don’t know. It seemed…possible.” John shrugged. “Every day I look at the gun and I don’t pull the trigger.”

“Why does dying seem like a solution?” His usual curiosity was limned by some emotion that he could not really identify.

“I am a soldier who can no longer serve. I am a surgeon who can no longer hold a scalpel. I no longer serve a purpose. You can’t understand how that feels.”

Sherlock watched a bit of flotsam bob out from under the bridge. “Can I not?” he said mildly. 

John turned to look at him.

There was absolutely no reason for Sherlock to recount his past to this stranger. But he took a deep breath and spoke anyway. “Two years ago I slept in an alleyway not far from this very bridge. A squashed cardboard box was my bed and I stank of my own vomit. But none of that mattered, because all I could think of was my next fix. I favoured a 7% solution, but when that was unavailable I settled for whatever I could get.” Sherlock felt no shame over his history [why should he have? It was what it was.] But, for some reason, he could not bring himself to meet John’s gaze.

“You were an addict?”

“I was a user,” he corrected.

“Semantics,” John said sharply.

Sherlock gestured vaguely. “The point is that one night I lay in my own filth and decided that my life no longer served a purpose. So I over-dosed.” He paused. “An inspector from Scotland yard stumbled across me and I didn’t die. I went to rehab.”

“And now?”

“Now I help find killers for those idiots from the Yard when they are too stupid to do it themselves. Which happens on a regular basis.”

Suddenly, surprisingly, John giggled, which was more appealing than it had a right to be. “Well, sadly, I don’t think chasing down criminals is in my future, but I understand your point.”

Sherlock studied him for a moment. “We’ll see,” was all he said.

They seemed to reach an unspoken agreement and after John took his cane in hand, they started to walk the rest of the way across the bridge. “Hungry?” Sherlock said abruptly.

“Starving,” John replied.

“I know a Chinese place that is still open.” They reached the opposite side of the Thames and Sherlock turned left. He did not slow his pace, but John kept up anyway, even with an awkward gait. The hideous cane tapped along the pavement. “Do you know that you can tell the quality of a Chinese restaurant by looking at the bottom third of the doorknob?” Sherlock asked.

“Do tell.”

So Sherlock told him and John listened. John kept listening all night, seemingly interested in everything he said.

The next day Lestrade called him to the scene of what was the fourth in a series of odd deaths and he showed up with a doctor in tow.

And, no, Sherlock never figured out why he stopped on that bridge to talk to the man who was thinking about jumping into the Thames, but eventually he realised that the Why didn’t matter. He had stopped and that made all the difference.

*

**Author's Note:**

> Title From: Jumpers by Tom Stoppard


End file.
